Western Railroad Discussion > A Quick Study of the Monterey Local

The Monterey Local brings many different memories to many people from the past decades of Southern Pacific Railroading on California's central coast and Salinas Valley. In the PSR/COVID days of 2020 it seems as if the Monterey Local operates Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Every day starts at 8am in Watsonville Junction - The train switches the yard and assembles their outbound train. The Monterey will either consist of mostly boxcars or hoppers. There seem to always be a couple of chemical tank cars or a couple lumber loads in the mix as well. The boxcars are for a large paper products plant along the Spreckles trackage in SE Salinas. The hoppers are for two medium sized fertilizer plants in Soledad and San Lucas. The train will either be going exclusively to Salinas for a day of switching, or they will have a far journey south switching as far south of San Lucas. 

1. I caught the train this Tuesday, June 30th - Blasting through Salinas at track speed. It was clear to see that Salinas was not not on the switch list, and alas, I would finally get to chase the train South! I got onto 101 and raced to Chualar for a standard Salinas Valley shot. Kicking up dust and some birds!

2. Veteran Conductor Liz Heller completes a chemical tank car set-out at the first fertilizer plant just North of Soledad

3. By now I was struggling with high noon sun, but still wanted to document the rich agricultural land of the Salinas Valley that this train helps to service. Here the pair of Jeeps can be seen moving out of Tunnel 5.5 along Metz Road.

 

---

---

---

4. The timinng of this train always comes with the risk of getting held up by both the north and southbound Starlights. Like clockwork, the Monterey was put in the hole at King City for about an hour in order for #11 to pass. The industries south of Salinas require locals to block the main in order to complete switching.

5. Veteran Engineer Mike Addams throttles the train up grade between King City and San Lucas

6. After completing the last industry in San Lucas the crew is left with a choice. Either shove 15 miles back to King City to run around their train for the journey north. Or continue south to San Ardo and run around their train there. When you're getting paid by the mile the choice is simple. I was able to snag a pan shot on the way to San Ardo and was really happy with how it turned out!

---

---

---

7. The southern most point of the day. Running around the train at San Ardo.

8. Getting the hell out of San Ardo and finally going home. 

9. I don't want to spam you all with too many pictures, but here is my last shot of the day. Cruising past the Castroville Searchlights. 

---

---

---

Very nice.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

I love the searchlight signal.  How many searchlights are still in service on the Coast?  I would have thought they would all be replaced by now.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Top notch coverage! Thanks for putting this together and including an interesting narrative. 

Very enjoyable series!

Larry

Great series! What day are they  going all the way to Paso Robles now?? Strange to see the local with two empty center beams north of Salinas.....

Bill Root

And no more oil cans at San Ardo. Oh well.  it was the good old days. 

Great set of photos, Elrond would be proud (is he still on this board?)

Between San Ardo and San Lucas is one of my favorite stretches of the line, with the parallel road the entire way between the two points.  That and the tunnel near Soledad.

Rich

Excellent report! Not easy finding a spot to park on the south side of Tunnel 5.5.

This was the Santa Margarita Local pre-PSR, making the run only twice a week. The Watsonville crew must be busy, doing the industries between Salinas and Spreckels Lead on the other days (Mon/Wed/Fri?).
 

webmaster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I love the searchlight signal.  How many
> searchlights are still in service on the Coast? 
> I would have thought they would all be replaced by
> now.

As far as I know there are still operating searchlights at Corporal, Watsonville Junction, Castroville, and North Salinas 

Superb images and great story!

Nice series!

Great stuff!

Posted from iPhone

Thanks for the photo of Tunnel 5.5.  Many years ago, when I was heading up the coast on Amtrak #14, the conductor got on the PA system just after we cleared King City, and advised the passengers that we would soon be experiencing a solar eclipse. I thought this was rather strange, because such astronomical events are usually well publicized and I had neither heard nor read of any such occurrence affecting California.  But just as predicted, it got very dark very quickly, and it took a few seconds to realize that we were in a tunnel in an unexpected location.  One would presume that nowadays, some large yellow machines would have turned the hillside into fill dirt, but in the old days of mules and men with picks and shovels the tunnel method was chosen.
 

Fantastic set of photos!  Great job!

As the over reach from PSR starts to work its way out, the locals keep changing.

Run to Paso is now back to saturday nights.  So im guessing its the rock crew again. Dont really know.

The Monterey..at least we know its M-W-F switching salinas, and Tues to San Ardo.  Dont know what they do on thurs now.

They were doing Paso Robles on tues and/or thurs AM,  and Salinas M-W-F, but that didnt work out.

The  Centerbeam cars south of salinas are to/from Valley Pallet, on Spence road south of Firestone a bit.

Thanks for the pics...

Great images, as usual!   Love the Pan shot. 

Dave